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What do we desire from our lives and our work? In October of 2023, I participated in a debate at my college, Western Carolina University, regarding whether gender affirming care for minors should be banned. When it was my turn, I mostly stuck to the facts. I cited medical organizations, doctors, and meta-analyses. Though we were .. MORE
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Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Years ago, I read Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus. In the book, Yunus describes the origins and purpose of the Grameen Bank. This bank specializes in offering small loans to people in poverty to help them begin to attain self-sufficiency. This isn’t a charitable organization – .. MORE
Labor Mobility, Immigration, Outsourcing
Lately I’ve been watching Fox News Channel more than usual. I’ve noticed Jesse Waters (who replaced Tucker Carlson, who replaced Bill O’Reilly) using a phrase a lot: military-age males. He invariably uses it to refer to immigrants, typically illegal immigrants. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit also did it recently. When you observe the males they’re talking .. MORE
Macroeconomics
Here are five observations about recent trends in monetary policy: 1. The Fed would really like to avoid any further increase in interest rates. This psychological aversion to interest rate increases in not rational, and it actually makes it more likely that the Fed will find it necessary to raise interest rates even further. That’s .. MORE
Income Distribution
Inheritances can be controversial because some people inherit enormous wealth while others inherit nothing or even debts. Due to this apparent inequity, even the archconservative economist James Buchanan supported massive inheritance taxes. By contrast, another free-market economist, Milton Friedman, argued such taxes are inefficient because they encourage people to consume during their lifetimes rather than .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Here are some highlights of my weekly reading for the week just passed. Providing Labor Market Context for Debt-Related Driver’s License Suspensions in Ohio by Kyle D. Fee and Brian A. Mikelbank, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Community Development Reports, February 23, 2o24. Excerpt: Based on our analysis, over 830,000 Ohioans could be at risk .. MORE
Violence and War
Economics can help understand two conflicting aspects of religion: its potential usefulness in a free society and the incentives of some believers for extreme intolerance. The social usefulness of religion has been noticed by many thinkers, including Friedrich Hayek (see Chapter 9 of The Fatal Conceit). Religion or at least some religions can provide the .. MORE
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Browse our archive of posts by author last nameEconomics of Crime
The housing sector in Irvine, California is booming, partly due to an inflow of investment from China. When I ask Chinese acquaintances where the money comes from, they suggest that it is transferred to the US through mysterious channels. Commenter Ahmed Fares directed me to a Daily Mail story that sheds light on one such .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Here are some highlights of my weekly reading for the week just passed. Providing Labor Market Context for Debt-Related Driver’s License Suspensions in Ohio by Kyle D. Fee and Brian A. Mikelbank, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Community Development Reports, February 23, 2o24. Excerpt: Based on our analysis, over 830,000 Ohioans could be at risk .. MORE
Energy, Environment, Resources
I recently stumbled across a news story that highlights something about capitalism and the profit motive that is underappreciated by the very people who most loudly clamor for it – the conservation of resources. Capitalism doesn’t merely incentivize maximizing output – it also incentivizes minimizing the use of inputs as well. If you want to .. MORE
H.G. Wells Best known today for science fiction novels such as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells was in his own day widely regarded as a prophet. Trained in science, he predicted the wireless telephone, directed energy weapons such as the laser, and the production of human-animal .. MORE
I‘m thankful to my undergraduate mentor, Bill Field, for things too many to count. Among these is his introducing me during my junior year to public-choice scholarship. “Dr. Field” (as I then called him) did so by suggesting that I read James Buchanan’s and Richard Wagner’s 1978 monograph, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs .. MORE
Book Review of Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, by Michael Lewis1 and Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson.2 Economists don’t find people all that interesting. Many of us have friends and family, but our models and analysis are devoid of personality and character. We talk about principles and agents, about the .. MORE
A Liberty Classic Book Review of Ludwig von Mises. 2011[1940]. Interventionism: An Economic Analysis. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.1 There is no small book that can take the place of Ludwig von Mises’ magisterial book, Human Action.2 However, if there were a contest for shorter publications that could substitute for it, his own book, Interventionism, would .. MORE
Is Millei giving a positive message that Argentina may have pain in the short run but if they stay the course they can join the USA, Switzerland and Germany near the top in per capita..
Floccina, April 13